I am myself not a big fan of those fake meat products, but you have a source for that.
I'd assume economies of scale matter, because economies of scale matter everywhere?
Cows look basically like processing plants. They produce food, fertilizer and energy (biogas).
E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned. [0] The vegetarian equivalent has been cheaper there than the real meat thing, although the process for both is not very different in the EU than in the US.
[0] https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/07/26/plant-based...
Not really.
> E.g. in the Netherlands the prices are more competitive, and sometimes even turned.
Meat prices relative to non-meat food prices are much higher than in the US (taxation on a lot of the things that drive the additional costs of meat play a role here.) So, yes, it stands to reason that plant-based meat substitutes, using similar process that adds similar (proportional) cost to the raw materials (actual production costs and margins) would remain more competitive with real meat than it is in the US.
And with a number of EU countries (and I think there are EU-wide proposals, as well) discussing “meat taxes” as part of climate efforts, that’s quite possibly going to get more pronounced.
Soy/tofu/cardboard Patties bring the average down but the recent products that try to replicate the taste of meat are still a premium product.
Unless you mean the vegetarian chicken pieces don't taste like chicken but like cardboard, that is fair. Then again, supermarket chicken also tastes like chicken flavoured cardboard. It's not a premium product either.
Basic legumes and veggies are much cheaper.
> The United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries. Research from 2015 shows this subsidization reduces the price of Big Macs from $13 to $5
As counter point I tried some of these products figured what I liked and then just cooked them at home.
I know I am probably underestimating how much people will cook at home. But to me making a beef enchillada is about the same work as black bean burger but buying black beans is a hell of a lot cheaper than these products.
You hit the nail on its head. I think there's still hope for meat substitutes if they can improve their flavor while also lowering their price. But I'm not holding out hope for that.
https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-plant-menu-ultimate-no-...
https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/linda-mccartneys-2-vegetar...
They taste delicious and are absolutely competitive with meat burger prices.
If you go for lean mince then you're at exactly the same price range: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-ashfields-british-extra...
That's lower calorie than the veggie burger, but you still have to do the prep yourself.
Or you can go for the quorn mince which is much leaner than all the above and costs less than the lean beef mince: https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/p-quorn-mince-500g/501950...
They're not exactly like chicken but if you treat them as their own thing then they're a perfectly good substitute in things like stir fries.
Quorn bacon substitute rashers are also pretty good in a fry up. Again, they're not bacon but if you treat them as their own thing, very enjoyable.
Not sure anything substitutes for a good steak or nice bit of cod yet but that's only an occasional treat for us anyway.
Even without premiums target audience is willing to accept, subsidies of 10-20% of sector revenue are pretty hard to beat.
Thanks to lobbying meat and cow-milk are taxed as basic foods, while vegan alternatives are taxed as luxury items.
Meat was a luxury product not eaten every day for most of history and still is in most parts of the world. Given the environmental impact of Meat and Diary in terms of CO2, Methane, Water usage, and Deforestation we should heavily reconsider our nonchalant view of them as a cheap commodity.
And nobody want's to return to those dark ages.
This devil's alliance between veganism and environmentalism is what put me off environmentalism. Climate change can be softened by banning airplanes, air conditioning, and other things we don't need, not by banning food.
That means at least 80% is burned for livestock or livestock feed. Since part of the palm oil and other plant produced is also used for livestock feed that number probably closer to 85%.
See:
https://www.fern.org/fileadmin/uploads/fern/Documents/Fern%2...
Your proposed solutions simply don't add up. Air Travel makes up 2.5-3.5% of all GHG emissions, Air Conditioning makes up 3.94%. Livestock makes up a whopping 18%.
So even banning all air travel and air conditioning, would only give you the same reduction on GHG emissions as eating 40% less dairy and meat.
So cutting meat and dairy from your diet is one of the easiest ways to cut your CO2 footprint massively. And it's actually just a minor inconvenience once you get used to plant based cooking, calling vegan cooking "dark ages" is ridiculously overdramatic, considering that e.g. indian food is often vegan and delicious.
See:
https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/af/article/1/1/19/4638592
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-aviation
https://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2022/nrel-shows-impact-of-co....
I will generally advise that people avoid buying any products from countries who has a history of burning rain forests to produce (or we can call it subsidize) cheap exports. Similar for cheap products created from child labors, military conflicts, sweatshops, or forced labor camps.
you mean softened by removing things you dont use.
Look at the moment no one is banning meat. There is a reasonably amount of evidence to suggest that the kind of meat consumed and the volume might be the cause of various cancers. I'm not vegan, and like most people I really wish vegans weren't the noisy shouty face of environmentalism.
But, if you want change, people have to, well change. There are a few routes to that, one is price change (inflation is helping with that, stuff that requires a lot of energy to produce, ie feedlot meat and greenhouse based veg) are rising in price more than less refined or forced food stuffs.
Subsidies could be re-directed to different parts of the farming ecosystem (but that's politically challenging)
or you can outright ban things, but again thats also challenging.
No, there isn't any reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that. Vegans get cancer at the same rate as non-Vegans.
Lung cancer however, you are right.
I'm not vegan by the way, I really like salami. just less now.
There are parts of the world that are uninhabitable without AC, and I know tons of people who don't eat meat, but virtually everybody in developed countries flies. My partner's family lives at the other side of the planet so banning airplanes means she would never get to see her sisters again.
Limiting ourselves to places we can occupy (and actually work/produce) year round without environmental control would mean basically killing off a significant chunk of the planet's population and telling loads of whoever is left that they need to leave behind their homes and move.
Compared to eating less meat, that seems to be a much bigger ask.
Keep your hands off my AC. I’ll go vegan before I sleep in a pool of my sweat nightly.
Most people have a vitamin-D deficiency, most vegans that I know of at least take care of making sure that they get enough supplements.
only if you can process lactose. A large amount of people can't. Plus, "traditional" farming is highly dependent on location.
Meat wasn't a staple food 100 years ago, it was too expensive for regular people. Same with milk, if you didn't own a cow, you just didn't drink it. You drank some sort of ale.
His mother kept chickens, so they had eggs - to the point that as an adult he never eats them because he got sick of them by the time he graduated from high school.
My grandparents were the first generation in my country who started to have regular access to meat after WW2. Before that it was either a rare thing and much of the "meat" they ate was offal.
Pea soup was 99% peas and a small chunk of smoked meat added for flavour.
Meanwhile billions of people live perfectly normal lives eating legumes (beans, chickpeas, peanuts) for protein.
So not as simple as one would think...
" Who Benefits Most From Farm Subsidies?
Farm subsidies don't benefit all farms equally. According to the Cato Institute, farmers of corn, soybeans, and wheat receive more than 70% of farm subsidies. These are also usually the largest farms.
From an other source:
"Corn growers received the most product-specific assistance with $2.2 billion in subsidies. That was only about 4.4% of the $50.4 billion in total corn production that year. Soybeans rank second in subsidies. While the US soybean industry produced $41.3 billion worth of products in 2017, it received $1.6 billion in subsidies in 2016, representing 3.9% of production.
The US sugar industry produced $2.5 billion worth of product in 2017 and received $1.6 billion in subsidies, according to the report. The support amounted to 63.5% of the value of total production."
- https://www.thoughtco.com/us-farm-subsidies-3325162
- https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-da...
That would only be true if the cost of the patty was only thing that impacted the price to the consumer, but everything else like transporting the thing to a store, paying the store staff to sell it, paying for marketing, branding, etc, paying taxes on it, are essentially the same regardless of whether the patty is made of cows or plants. A patty that costs 0.25c to make could be reduced to 0.01c to make, which would reduce the price in the market from 5.99 to 5.74...
[1]: https://www.agfoundation.org/common-questions/view/could-mor...
Do you have reputable sources for that statement being "plain false"?
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habi...
"If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. Of all the land we use for agriculture, 77% of it is used for livestock."
These 77% are only responsible for 18% of the produced calories and 37% of the produced proteins.
So, if you leave out water consumption and most importantly animal walfare, eating meat is the worst thing you can to for the environment (when talking about food).
I doubt that 86% of that 77% is truly unsuitable for farming human food, but I wouldn't be surprised if 30-50% of it was.
Of all the cropland we have, 57% is used to produce human food and 43% is used to produce animal food.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#more-plant-based-d...
The whole point is that you need way more crops in general to "produce" the same amount of calories & proteins. That's because feeding the animals with crops instead of eating them is highly inefficient in comparison to eating them directly. "As an example: beef has an energy efficiency of about 2%. This means that for every 100 kilocalories you feed a cow, you only get 2 kilocalories of beef back."
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets#livestock-waste-a-...
With how much meat is eaten right now, there is just no way we have enough grazing land to produce enough meat. 99% of meat comes from factory farms. [1] These animals are always fed with crops, so there will always be land usage to product food for animals. And it is way more inefficient.
[1]: https://www.livekindly.com/99-animal-products-factory-farms/
You see this with human crops too - Why do people grow corn when almonds are much higher dollar value per acre? Why not wine grapes? The reason is because not every patch of land is suitable for high-value cash crops. Going down the quality scale, not every patch of land is suitable for food for human consumption either. The reason why is that "cropland" is not fungible - soil has particular characteristics, nutrients, contaminants, and microorganisms, all of which affect which crops you can grow.
Products can fail even if everything is delivered. This is why the supermarket Tesco gave up on trying to enter the USA market.
Or why I can't get Quorn here in Germany even though I personally think it's a much better taste and texture than any of the Rügenwalder Mühle brands.
Or why I can get Sauerkraut juice here, but not in the UK.
It's a crazy product designed for a society with weird eating habits.
They're not trying to cook the best vegetable dishes. They're not trying to cook dishes that use less meat. They're not trying to expand your palettes and reintroducing liver, sweetbreads or other weird cuts.
All these "green" products convince you to not do the most important things: REDUCE and REUSE.
99% of the important bits of a dish don't come from making something meat-like but cooking something that isn't bland and uninteresting. And you don't need fake meat to work around that.
There is a place for these meat substitutes but should they be eaten all of the time; no. Education around veggies is the key for solving the meat production issues.
I call it "beyond beyond meat."
It's supposed to be a gateway product that will eventually entice hardcore meat eaters to first try fake meat and then maybe dare to try a non-fake meat vegan product.
The best vegan products aren't "meat thing but vegan", they're all just gateway stuff.
The best vegan food is stuff you couldn't do with meat at all. Just look at Indian or Thai/Vietnamese cuisine. The protein doesn't really matter, 99% of the taste is in the sauce.
I agree, but I don't think it's a gateway. They want to replace all those beef burgers with Impossible meat burgers. However things like Impossible meat, while very impressive, cost more than the real thing and don't taste right. It's the uncanny valley of meat.
The best vegan food is stuff you couldn't do with meat at all. Just look at Indian or Thai/Vietnamese cuisine.
That's my point. There's plenty of good meat free or meat reduced food. But we're not running campaigns to encourage less meat consumption or promoting the cuisines of other cultures. Instead they created a company to make and sell hyper realistic fake meat. If you were really concerned about your meat consumption and it's impact on the environment, you'd just eat less meat. It's 100% actionable without these companies and tastes better.
I like vegetables too, obviously, but sometimes I just want a burger.
Expand your research a little bit. Fake meat has been very popular in buddhism countries for very long time, often to entice people to switching to non animal food.
https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/plant-based-m...
To compensate for her homesickness, Ng decided to sell her own line of vegetarian imitation meats, and partnered with manufacturers in Taiwan to develop and import many of the dishes that she grew up with. In 1994, she opened up May Wah Vegetarian Market in New York City's Chinatown, and stocked it full with packets of imitation steak, spare ribs, shrimp, mutton, and grilled eel—all made some sort of combination of soy, seaweed, wheat gluten, or mushrooms.
It didn't land well. "Unfortunately it was not a good beginning for us. People were hesitant about trying these products," Lily says. "They wanted to stick to tofu and beans, and it was very hard for us to get people to try it. We ended up giving a lot of stuff away.
You can get the Chinese fake meat as snacks from your local Asian supermarket. I have Weilong brand fish tofu and barbeque gluten right now. These are meaty, but no where near as convincing as impossible meat. My fish tofu and barbeque gluten snacks have a fish cake like texture and are full of MSG. They appear to be vegan though.
We’re pointing to a culture that is used to a wide range of flavours and textures every day. They don’t needed that much convincing to try a not meat product, but it’s also easier to fake certain meat products. (Their existing fake meats are way cheaper than impossible meat though.)
But Impossible meat wasn’t designed for the Chinese. Or even Asians in general.
Anecdotally, people in my social circle go for food that is socially acceptable in that circle. If 'low impact' food became a thing, price would have less influence on it ( kinda like every teen has to have an Iphone -- I am exaggerating a little - or when driving a small sedan in US means you are poor ).
There are all sorts of minor dynamics that are underexplored in that arena.
25 times of cattle feed, sure. But there's a lot of selection and mixing of various plants for taste. It's not a simple replacement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Conversi...
(Disliking and thus moving away from those practices is a goal some people have, but they are the dominate method of meat production at the moment, so it's the reasonable comparison)
There are a few exceptions to this, even in stores. If you buy from Whole Food and get their brand beef, it's grass-only. I know the largest rancher selling to WF, we're friends -- my teeball team beat his teeball team in the season finals last summer.
I mostly raise dairy cows, but if you're going to go through the effort to raise one sort of breed of cattle, it's trivial to add in an even lower maintenance cattle as well. As a result I have three or four animals in my pasture right now who are getting ready for freezer camp. My neighbors are all beef ranchers, I am the exception. But none of us are feeding grain to our cattle. My area sells a massive amount of grass-only beef. We have the luxury of this being basically free for us to do and then having found a niche market willing to accept a lot more money for their beef if it was raised right and fed right. I don't sell my beef the way most folks do, so unless you know me personally, you've never eaten my animals or had our farm's dairy products.
All that to say, there are very good alternatives to feedlots. My beef cattle only need supplemental food (aka more than the green grass in my pastures) between December and April. I did the math, it costs me $140 / year to feed out cattle and it takes two or three years for an Angus to be butcher-weight. That's $420 on the high end for a grass-only steer that'll dress to like 600lbs of beef.
I'd get by with even fewer days feeding except I also own and breed Appaloosas and horses are much harder on the pastures than cattle. If I ran two herds my cattle would keep the pastures in grass until about January -- and with this warm weather I know folks who have YET to feed hay! But with my horses mixed into the herd it means that the grass is killed if I keep them on it -- horses have top and bottom teeth, they can cut grass clear to the dirt but cattle only have bottom teeth and they'll leave about 1/2" of grass on each blade, meaning the grass can continue to regenerate all winter if it's wet and warm enough.
I read somewhere you would need 25 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef, ergo one could potentially produce 25 times the amount of substitute. Obviously that isn't true and such a patty is a specialized product of various highly processed plant matter. It is around 2-4 times the price of meat equivalent and to me it is no surprise, that people aren't willing to pay more for an inferior product.
Now people say, well if we all had bought it, mass production would already reduced the price significantly. I don't think people are paying new cooking methods and food processing reactors here.
There are more people involved, more complex ingredients, more processes, more shipping and more energy. That is why it is much more expensive.